help on Helpful

As a stranger walked down a quiet residential street, he noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. The homeowner was clearly having a hard time, so the passerby, wan...

Preaching Commentary “Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Comment...

“Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Commentary series on the Psal...

Adam was called by God to take care of Eden. But it was too much work for one man. Eden was massive. Adam was incapable of gardening the whole thing. He needed help.  That’s why God created Eve. Go...

God our helper, by your Holy Spirit, open our minds that as the Scriptures are read and your Word is proclaimed, we may be led into your truth and taught your will, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lo...

God doesn’t help those who help themselves: he helps those who trust him.

Over time, I have learned it’s easier to get help if you look like you don’t really need it.

“The help will come,” said Trufflehunter. “I stand by Aslan. Have patience, like us beasts. The help will come. It may be even now at the door.”

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

Total need requires total help

God you have promised to be our help, but we turn our eyes to lifeless idols, looking for help from other arenas. We fail to trust in your unfailing love and your ever-present help. Turn us back to yo...

Live and let live is not enough. Live and help live is not too much.

An American woman visiting the Philippines, observed an elderly woman on the outskirts of Manila. She looked poverty-stricken and walked with the help of a cane down into a ditch alongside a main road...

Pastor John Ortberg shares this amazing story about how God sometimes uses even our broken pasts to to help others: I read about a woman who locked her keys in her car in a rough neighborhood. She t...

There’s a story (probably apocryphal) about a small dog that had been hit by a car and left injured by the side of the road. A passing nurse noticed the wounded animal, saw it was still alive, and sto...

[Christ] is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matthew 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of ...

O God, from whom to be turned is to fall, to whom to be turned is to rise, and with whom to stand is to abide for ever; grant us in all our duties your help, in all our perplexities your guidance,...

I can’t help but recall here a scene from The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry reaches out to his deputy, Josh Lyman, who is struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable: This guy’...

Leader: Our help is in the name of the Lord, People: who made heaven and earth.  Leader: If You, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? People: But wit...

Pastor: Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth. You are amazing and powerful, yet You love each of us dearly. We give You thanks for sustaining all of creation and remembering Your covenant faithfulnes...

O God, the Father of the forsaken, the help of the weak, the supplier of the needy, you have distributed and proportioned your gifts to body and soul, in such sort that all may acknowledge and perform...

Joseph would be the first to tell you that life in the pit stinks. Yet for all its rottenness, doesn’t the pit do this much? It forces you to look upward. Someone from up there must come down here and...

A climber recently had to be airlifted off Japan’s Mount Fuji due to altitude sickness. That alone would have been a dramatic enough story. But four days later—still recovering—he climbed back up ...

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears     and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted     and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictio...

Leader: Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. People: Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”? Leader: But you do see, ...

Changing Direction There was a story going around about the Special Olympics. For the hundred-yard dash, there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine ...

“He stands by you:” A drowning man cannot pull himself out of the water by his own hair. Neither can you do it. Someone else must rescue you. This is the good news of Christmas. He who stands by you a...

I am struck by all the things Jesus didn’t say or do in response to the litanies of pain and defensiveness he heard from people. Jesus didn’t say to the man, “You sound like a victim to me; what are y...

O God, hear my prayer, give ear to the words of my mouth. Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life. We will praise your name, O Lord, for it is good.

Lord, You answer our pleas for help. You draw near to us when we are hurting; You save us when we are crushed by life. Your Psalmists declare it on every page. Yet we often feel abandoned and alone. W...